C.E. Murphy - Heart of Stone

“Care to tell me what that was about?”

“No,” Margrit said, grinning. “Just one of my many admirers. Cole, please, please get me the hell out of here.”

The yellow police tape was gone, the ground scraped raw, no longer muddied with blood. The park lights made sharp-edged shadows on the rough earth, sunset having come and gone. Margrit hitched her thumbs in her waistband, studying the area for signs of Ausra’s death, but nothing was there. A mounted policeman rode by, nodding a greeting. Margrit nodded in return, bouncing on her toes to keep warm. Running tights and a sweatshirt would let her break directly into her workout if Alban didn’t come, but they weren’t warm enough for standing around the park.

Footsteps sounded behind her, and she lifted her chin, eyes closing with relief. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”

“I almost didn’t.” Alban’s steps stopped several feet away. Margrit lifted her chin higher, feeling the distance as a wall between them, even without seeing it. “I thought a long time about leaving New York for good,” the gargoyle added after a moment.

Margrit gave a laugh that made her heart ache. “Over a woman.”

“Isn’t it always over a woman?” Faint humor infused Alban’s voice, and she turned to him, studying the angles of his face in the blue streetlights. His hair purpled beneath the lamps, his eyes colorless and intent on her. Even the suit jacket was the same, lilac in its shadows, the cold not bothering him at all.

He inclined his head, making a small, fluid gesture that encompassed the fact she was on her feet and out of the hospital. “Yes. You’re healing very quickly.”

“A gift.” Margrit pulled a quick, wry smile. “From Daisani.”

Alban’s silence was foreboding. “That…” he said eventually, and Margrit laughed.

“Was a bad idea. I know. It was his bad idea, though, and I was stuck in a hospital bed. I didn’t have anywhere to run.”

“Running isn’t your strong suit, anyway.”

“On the contrary,” Margrit said, offended. “I’m a very good runner.”

“Not when the direction to run is ‘out of danger.’”

Another smile flickered across Margrit’s face, keeping more complicated emotions at bay. “Maybe not then,” she admitted, then bit her lower lip. “Alban…”

“I’ve searched the memories,” he said abruptly, cutting her off. “Mine. Ausra’s, and Hajnal’s through them.”

Margrit cocked her head, then shook it uncertainly. “You have their memories now? How’d that happen?”

He turned his hand palm up, and his voice held old weariness. “Each family carries a part of the Old Races’ history. We gather once every century to share memories, so the history remains. If someone dies, her memories go to the nearest gargoyle, so nothing is ever lost, even when a family dies out. Ausra was the last of Hajnal’s family, the Dunstal line. I am the last of the Korunds. I carry the memories of both those lines, now.”

“Jesus, Alban. That’s a hell of a burden.”

“Made the more so for exile.” Alban said the words as if they didn’t matter, making Margrit’s teeth grind. “Hajnal’s memories are, I think, tainted by Ausra’s rage. It’ll take time to sort through her anger and find the truth, but what I remember from the old memories, from before I left the tribe, there have only been a few cases where a gargoyle faced daylight. In each of those, the individual was a half-breed.”

Margrit knotted her hands, wanting to pursue the topic of exile, though a trace of amusement slid through her annoyance. How she expected to force a creature with Alban’s weight advantage to talk when he didn’t want to, she couldn’t imagine. She relaxed her hands, letting irritation go, to ask another question: “A half-breed? Like half…dragon? Vampire?”

Alban nodded. “Another Old Race. We’re not prone to intermingling our bloodlines, but it happens once in a while.”

“Half-human?” Margrit asked in a low voice. Alban shifted backward, putting a little more space between them. Broadening the wall that lay between them. There were so many reasons not to breach it. The words danced through her mind for the hundredth time: alien. Inhuman. Different. Racially separate.

“It’s taboo,” he finally replied. “An exiling offense, as much as killing one of our own or letting humans know we exist. Though the selkies have interbred with humans for generations, to keep their bloodline alive at all. So perhaps we’re not so different.”

“We don’t know how long Hajnal was that man’s captive.”

“No.” Alban said the word with brusque finality, leaving Margrit to bow her head.

“Thanks for choosing me.” She let a breath out, adding, “Two out of three, Alban.”

He shook his head, a slight questioning motion, and she turned her gaze away, looking into the park. “You just told me three things that were exiling offenses among the Old Races. You’ve done two out of three in the last week. You told me about yourself, and you killed Ausra to save me. Where does that leave you?”

“Alone.” The ease in Alban’s voice made Margrit look at him again, offense rising on his behalf.

“That’s it? You’ll just sit back and take it? You had good reasons to do what you did.”

“Among the Old Races, Margrit, there is no good reason to break our laws. What few selkies may be left are hardly part of our people any longer, and no one would have truck with them if it could be avoided. I’ve lived half my life in exile. It does me no harm to continue this way.”

“I don’t think that’s acceptable.”

“What you think doesn’t matter, Margrit. It’s how our society has built its laws.”

“Laws, Alban,” Margrit said clearly, “are for reinterpreting, rebuilding, negotiating and discarding when they no longer make sense within the confines of a society. I’m not quitting just because the going’s getting tough.” Regret suddenly spiked as she thought of Tony. She had stopped when things got tough with him, too often.

Margrit set her jaw, putting the thought aside. “I owe Janx favors and Eliseo Daisani wants a piece of me. Cara Delaney went missing on my watch, and I’m going to find her. Like it or not, I’m taking on your world one race at a time, so I don’t see why I shouldn’t go all the way and challenge your stupid exile laws, too. Walk away if you want to, but you brought me into this thing as your advocate, and that’s what I’m going to be.”

Alban looked down at her across the space he’d delineated, finally shaking his head. “I’ve put you in danger already, Margrit. I’ll do what I can to remove the onus of promises made to Janx and Daisani. You’ll be able to return to your own world unfettered. The rest of it is my own problem, and I choose not to question the laws the Old Races have abided by for millennia.” He hesitated, as if there might be something left to say, then opened a big hand with graceful measure, and sketched a brief bow from the waist.

“Goodbye, Margrit.”

Margrit watched him go, a pale form leaping above the treetops, wings snapping open to catch the air, before she doubled over to stretch her hamstrings. Then she was running, almost without transition, pavement slapping by beneath her feet as she drew in deep breaths of cold air, savoring the sheer, exhilarating joy of exercise.

Ir. Ra. Shun. Al. Safety in long strides, freedom in exercise. Margrit sprinted around a park bench and broke into a hard run down a long straight stretch, half imagining she heard the annoyed grunt of a broad-shouldered monster in the trees. A creature bound to protect by his very nature, even if he threatened to walk away from it. A smile warmed her face as she put on speed, imagining Alban’s winged jumps above her.